OF KAMAON. 19 



intercourse which has continued to subsist with the mother country since 

 that event, has prevented a variation in language, and the dialect spoken 

 in those Ghats, is strictly that of the adjoining Tartar tribe. 



These observations do not apply to the Darma Ghat : its inhabitants, 

 though equally of Tartar origin, are traditionally derived from a different 

 race, and their settlement is traced through the circuitous route of 

 Hindustan. They are here considered as the descendants of a body of 

 Mongol Tartars, which was left to secure possession of Kamaon after its 

 subjection to Timur. This force, thinned by disease and the sword, 

 ultimately retreated to the Darma pass, and there formed a permanent 

 establishment. 



The histories of Timur, mention the subjugation of these hills by 

 §one of his Atabegs, a fact which is also confirmed by the local records: 

 these consist of little more than an enumeration of former Rajas, with the 

 duration of their respective reigns ; they, however, note an interregnum of 

 about twenty years, during which the Mogul sway continued. Vestiges 

 of this race are still found in the centre of the province, particularly at 

 Dewara and Bagesivar, consisting of tombs, constructed with large flat 

 tiles, and, in other respects, substantially built; these cannot, consequent- 

 ly, be attributed to the aborigenes, who were too rude to have made use 

 of tiles or bricks for any purpose, while they differ both in form and ap- 

 pearance from the graves of Jogis, the only class of Hindus which adopts 

 sepulture. It is therefore to Tartars or Mohammedans only that these 

 graves can be ascribed. The extreme sanctity of Bagesivar, a principal 

 " Prag," or Jamtran, precludes the supposition that either of these sects 

 would have been suffered, as subjects of a Hindu government, to pollute 

 that place with their dead, while the Mohammedans, as is well known, 

 were never able to effect any conquests within these hills. By the 



natives, 



